


Other Perfect Things

by theskywasblue



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Domesticity, M/M, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-08
Updated: 2010-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-10 11:13:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes imperfection is perfect</p>
            </blockquote>





	Other Perfect Things

Winter comes all at once, the air turns sharp, the sky darkens, and snow begins to fall in flakes the size of the coins Gojyo keeps in the jar by the door, his rainy-day fund. He hasn’t counted out those coins in desperation for beer money for two years, but he keeps putting his pocket change in out of habit.

The small house gets cold too fast, the furnace unprepared for the fickle temper of Mother Nature, and so Hakkai forgoes the gas bill and turns on the oven, letting it pour heat into the small kitchen, and they move the kitchen table up against the wall and sleep together on the floor.

***

Morning dawns cold and bright, the snow covering the road in knee-high drifts, falling from over-burdened tree branches with a sound like muted thunder. After lunch, when Hakkai realizes how low their supplies are, they bundle up in heavy jackets and kick their way down to the village, where only the most stubborn of shopkeepers have opened their doors. Hakkai buys cabbage, pork and late season sweet potatoes all fresh, stocks up on canned and dried goods otherwise, enough to last out the week. Gojyo helps Mrs. Izumi shovel the steps to her bakery and gets a free dozen of fresh buns for his trouble.

On the walk back to the house they try to follow their own tracks in the snow and Gojyo’s shoulder bumps Hakkai’s until he can barely stay upright. It isn’t until he looks sideways that he catches Gojyo – head down, looking at him through the loose strands of hair that have fallen in his eyes – with a teasing smirk on the edge of his lips.

Hakkai shoulders him back and he stumbles, grunting, “Hey!”

“What’s that Gojyo?” Hakkai feigns wide-eyed innocence behind his glasses.

Their shoulders knock again, Gojyo laughs. They jostle back and forth, laughter collecting in the air in shards of ice and silver fog. Suddenly, Gojyo must hit something beneath the drift – a rock or a rut in the stability of the road – and he falls, groceries spilling into the snow. He is stunned for a moment, on his back staring into an ice-blue sky, and then he laughs, with such force and totality that Hakkai cannot even properly help him upright at first, he is all deadweight and delight.

When he is finally back on his feet, he shakes the snow off his coat and rubs the bits clumped between his fingers into Hakkai’s hair, calling it “vengeance”.

It takes ten minutes and all their combined effort to find the cabbage lost in the snow.

***

Hakkai cooks down the cabbage with the pork, seasoned with only salt and pepper, cuts the sweet potatoes into thin slices and bakes them in the oven. Gojyo steals a spot at the stove to warm his fingers, sneaks a forkful of cabbage from the pan and hums his approval.

The snow starts again as they are washing dishes. Gojyo puts his forehead against the window, his breath fogging the aged glass and says, “I guess it’s a good thing we went.”

“They’re predicting a foot of snow by morning. In addition to what we had already.”

“Damn.”

They stand for a while and watch the snowflakes strike the windowpane; Hakkai dries his hands on a dish towel and puts one on the small of Gojyo's back, thumb rubbing little circles through the cloth, and though the house is warm now, Gojyo breaks out in goose bumps.

***

Later that night, as Gojyo is showering, Hakkai undresses - folding his clothes with the careful precision drilled into him by the sisters at the orphanage - and gets into bed with a book. Gojyo comes out of the shower wearing just sleeping pants and stands next to the bed, towelling his hair. He is smiling, not the roguish grin he uses on the girls at the bar or the devilish smirk he uses against his poker opponents, but one that's much more gentle and little bit timid. Hakkai thinks of this as Gojyo's real smile - the smile of a gentle boy with a big heart.

"Ya know, you could have mentioned something..." Gojyo gestures with a twitch of his head, towards his pants, indicating, Hakkai thinks, the pointlessness of dressing and undressing in rapid succession.

Hakkai closes his book, sets it, and his glasses, on the bedside table. "But then I wouldn't get the pleasure of surprising you."

"Hakkai, I don't think you're ever going to stop surprising me."

What surprises Hakkai is how eager they both are, how easy everything is, even when it is imperfect. Hakkai allows himself a moment to wonder just how different the course of his life might have been if this was all he had ever been offered – but the thought does not linger very long, its time has long passed. They fumble a little in the awkward cage of the blankets and Gojyo laughs against Hakkai’s lips, licks the seam they form as Hakkai presses them together in a frown of concentration; and when he finally finds that perfect position where their erections touch he breathes out Hakkai’s name against the column of his throat, not with reverence or desperation, but with raw pleasure and delight. They move together until Hakkai feels warm – so warm – with heat pulsing up from his groin, suffusing his limbs and out through his finger tips into Gojyo’s skin, creating something like an electric circuit. Hakkai kisses the soft spot behind Gojyo’s jaw, inhaling the shampoo and water sweetness of his wet hair and realizes that the slight ache at the corner of his mouth is a smile, trapped there like a butterfly by a pin.

***

“What’re we gonna do if we get snowed in?”

Hakkai has turned down the lamp, settled on his side with an arm tucked under his head, watching Gojyo blow smoke rings at the ceiling. He really should protest against smoking in bed, but he’s too content.

“Oh, I don’t suppose we’ll be without things to do – there is laundry for a start, and I really would like to reorganize the kitchen cupboards...”

Gojyo turns, reaching over Hakkai to crush out his cigarette in the ashtray. He doesn’t move away after, just sort of pins Hakkai to the mattress without any real strength. It doesn’t feel the least bit like a trap, and the smile he flashes in amongst the shadows has a wild edge. “Or we could...you know...just stay in bed.”

Hakkai is sure that the smile he responds with as he runs his fingers through the cool dampness of Gojyo’s hair has a wild edge to it as well. “Or we could do that.”

-End-


End file.
